Then onwards to the large dam in the mountains - this is kind of industrial and fenced off but looks pretty - no chance for us to swim so we head off up a tiny road to find our hike. Not a great place for our tiny toy car. We get it most of the way up the jeep track until I chicken out and park it and walk. We walk across a high plateau listening to the far off bells from local sheep and goats. When we wander off the path we realise that sheep are everywhere - tucked away in shady crevices and rocky protections. One rather small boulder contains eight sheep which spill out as I approach (some of them walking backwards) from a narrow shady crack. They seem very afraid of humans and trot off in a single file line - it seems this mild rocky landscape is also agricultural.
We walk on down the road through a shoulder high wall of stone. (This wall is a mystery, clearly built by enormous human effort, we later hear a few conflicting stories - none make sense - but a waiter told me, ‘Greeks like a story more than anything’). We walk further despite common sense because we need to see around the next corner. We stop in the shade of some trees. drink some and relax, and agree to go back.
Instead we go forward - find the footpath we sought and follow it along the ridge for a while. It is quiet and beautiful out here - our kind of silence. Eventually we cut back towards our car finding our own path among the braken and goat tracks. Then forward to the world of people and a winery. At the winery we are met by Nikola who shows us around - they have a tiy high altitude vineyard and crush the grapes by foot in a traditional granite basin - an impressive object made from five giant granite slabs. From there it is transferred into buried amphoras (about 120l) and left open with the leas for 40 days - then they take out the skins (pips are not crushed by foot so they never go in and the stalks are removed manually at the time of picking). The buried amphora are sealed with wax and left for more time before draining.
